Museum’s Old-Fashioned Christmas expands to 2 days

A Quincy community favorite for at least eight years, the Old-Fashioned Christmas celebration at the historic Pioneer Church has been expanded to two days because of its growing popularity.

An Old-Fashioned Christmas will be held at 7 p.m. Dec. 20 and again at 4 p.m. Dec. 21. Both events are at the Pioneer Church, 415 F St. S.W., next to the Reiman-Simmons House.

Organizer Harriet Weber is encouraging anyone interested in attending to arrive at the church 30 minutes early.

“The difference in this year’s events is that we will have a half hour of prelude music,” Weber said.

Also new this year, attendees are encouraged to pick up a ticket to guarantee their seats. While tickets are free, there are only 80 guaranteed seating tickets available for each event.

If ticket-holders are not present 15 minutes before the event, their seats may be given away to people arriving at the door without tickets.

“If people holding tickets have not shown up 15 minutes early, we will release the tickets to people showing up unticketed,” Weber said.

The primary attraction for coming a half hour early is the prelude music. Performing Dec. 20 will be the musical trio All Strings Considered from Wenatchee. Performing for the prelude on Nov. 21 will be Kennadi Hawes, winner of the 2014 Angela Schuster Svendsen Memorial Young Musician Competition, sponsored by the Wenatchee Valley Symphony Association.

Highlights of the event will be the traditional German-style lighting of the Christmas tree, a scripture reading and a sing-along to “Silent Night” and “Oh Christmas Tree” in English and German.

“The significance of singing in German and English is that this church was a German-speaking church in the early days,” Weber said.

Tickets are available at The Grainery, the Quincy Valley Post-Register and the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce.

For Weber, the Old-Fashioned Christmas celebration is an annual reminder of the true meaning of the holiday.

“I think the whole event makes Christmas for me,” she said. “It’s unplugged and acoustic. It brings a peacefulness and the true meaning of Christmas.”